With or without Howard, Brooklyn now has quite the formidable starting back court of Williams, Johnson and small forward Gerald Wallace.

And even if a deal for Howard doesn't work out they'll have post players like Lopez, Humphries and Evans as well a talented bench of Brooks and guard Gerald Green to go with those starting wing players. This version of the Nets looks like an Eastern Conference playoff team. Not a championship contender, but somewhere in the 5 to 8 playoff seed range.

Bring Howard along, and the easily defined roles on this new look Nets team may very well gel much, much quicker than the Miami Heat did. (NOT predicting a championship here, just saying the roles in a Howard-Johnson-Wallace-Williams starting lineup appear easier to sort out than Miami's Big 3 were two years ago.)